The Woman Caught in Adultery

By Fr. Conor Donnelly

(Proofread)

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

My Lord and my God, I firmly believe that you are here, that you see me, that you hear me. I adore you with profound reverence. I ask your pardon for my sins and grace to make this time of prayer fruitful. My Immaculate Mother, Saint Joseph, my father and lord, my guardian angel, intercede for me.

“And Jesus went out to the Mount of Olives. At daybreak, he appeared in the temple again. And as all the people came to him, he sat down and began to teach them. The scribes and the Pharisees brought a woman who had been caught committing adultery, and making her stand there in the middle, they said to Jesus, ‘Master, this woman was caught in the very act of committing adultery, and in the law of Moses, we are ordered to stone women of this kind. What have you to say?’

“They asked him this as a test, looking for an accusation to use against him. But Jesus bent down and started writing on the ground with his finger. As they persisted with their question, he straightened up and said, ‘Let the one among you who is guiltless be the first to throw a stone at her.’ He bent down and continued writing on the ground.

“When they heard this, they went away one by one, beginning with the eldest, until the last one had gone and Jesus was left alone with the woman who remained in the middle.

“Jesus again straightened up and said, ‘Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?’ ‘No one, sir,’ she replied. ‘Neither do I condemn you,’ said Jesus. ‘Go away and from this moment, sin no more’” (John 8:1-11).

Our Lord says those words, “Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?... Neither do I condemn you.” We are also told that the men who brought her there placed her in the middle. They humiliated her; they shamed her in the extreme, without the slightest concern for her. They remind Our Lord that the law imposed the heavy penalty of death by stoning for this particular sin.

“What do you say?” they ask Him, disguising their ulterior motives, “so that they might have some charge to bring against Him.”

But Our Lord surprises them. He doesn't say anything. “He bends down and writes with His finger on the ground.”

Of all the moments in the life of Our Lord, this is one of the most curious. Our Lord is sort of doodling there with His finger on the ground, writing something.

A person asked me once: “What do you think Our Lord was writing on the ground when He was doodling there with His finger?” I said, “I think He was probably writing the name of His favorite Premier football club in the UK.” We don't know the answer to that question.

The woman is terrified by all these people, all these accusations. The scribes and Pharisees go on asking the questions. Then, as on so many other occasions, Our Lord stands up and He confronts these people with their hypocrisy: “Let him who is without sin among you be the first to throw a stone at her.”

It would be difficult to imagine stronger words for Our Lord to say. He accuses each one of them in a rather gentle, but at the same time piercing manner.

“Once more, he bent down and wrote with His finger on the ground.” Our Lord is in a sense playing for time, allowing His message to sink into the consciences of these people who are so full of pharisaical rottenness.

“They all went away one by one, beginning with the eldest.” The eldest, it seems, had more wisdom than the others. Not a single one of them had a clear conscience, yet they were the ones who were trying to set a trap for Our Lord. They all went away.

Jesus is left alone with the woman standing before Him. He looks up at her with merciful eyes, so completely the opposite of these other men who were her accusers: “Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?”

Our Lord's words are full of gentleness and clemency, a manifestation of God's mercy and forgiveness. She immediately answered, “No one, Lord.” And Our Lord said to her, “Neither do I condemn you; go and do not sin again.”

You can imagine the great joy of that woman and her desire to begin again, and with that, her deep love for Christ, and gratitude. A deep change has taken place in her soul—a soul that was stained by sin and covered with public shame. We can only partly see the alteration in her with the light of faith.

The words of the prophet Isaiah are fulfilled: “Remember not the former things, nor consider the things of old. Behold, I am doing a new thing...I will make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert...to give drink to my chosen people, the people whom I formed for myself, that they might declare my praise” (Isa. 43:18-19).

Every day, in every corner of the world, Our Lord, through His ministers, the priests, continues to say: “I absolve you from your sins...” Our Lord says to each one of us: “Go, and do not sin again.” It is Christ Himself who forgives.

In his Apostolic Exhortation Reconciliation and Penance, Pope St. John Paul II said: “The sacramental formula ‘I absolve you’ and the imposition of the hand and the Sign of the Cross made over the penitent show that at this moment the contrite and converted sinner comes into contact with the power and mercy of God. It is the moment at which, in response to the penitent, the Trinity becomes present in order to block out sin and restore innocence. And the saving power of the passion for the death and resurrection of Jesus is also imparted to the penitent. ... God is always the one who is principally offended by sin and God alone can forgive.”

The words pronounced by the priest are not just a prayer of supplication to ask God to forgive our sins, or a mere certification that God has deigned to grant us His pardon, but “at that moment every sin is forgiven and blotted out by the mysterious intervention of the Savior.”

Few words have ever produced more joy in the world than the words of absolution: “I absolve you from your sins…”

St. Augustine affirms that the wonder they work is greater than the very creation of the world (cf. St. Augustine, Commentary on St. John’s Gospel).

We can be very grateful to hear those words when we go to the sacrament of forgiveness. How often have we thanked God for having this sacrament so close at hand? We could try in the future to show our gratitude more frequently to Our Lord for this great gift.

Through absolution, man is united to Christ the Redeemer who willed to take our sins upon Himself. Through this union, the sinner shares once again in that fountain of grace that springs without ceasing from the open side of Christ.

At the moment of absolution, we will intensify our sorrow for our sins, saying perhaps one of the prayers from the ritual, such as the words of St. Peter: “Lord, you know all things, you know that I love you…” (John 21:17).

We can renew our purpose of amendment—our desire to be better, our desire to improve. We can listen attentively to the priest's words which grant us God's forgiveness.

It's the moment of savoring the joy of having grace restored, if we have lost it, and receiving an increase of grace and greater union with God.

St. Ambrose says: “See, the father comes out to meet you. He will fall on your neck and will give you a kiss, the pledge of love and tenderness. He will make them bring you a cloak, shoes for your feet. You still fear a reprimand...you are afraid of hearing words filled with anger, and instead, he prepares a banquet for you.”

Our "Amen” to the words of the priest turns into a longing to start again even though we may have only confessed venial sins.

After Confession, we can thank God for His mercy towards us and stop, even though only momentarily, to decide exactly how we're going to put into practice the advice or indications we've received and how to make our purpose of amendment more effective.

“She told all her friends: ‘Come and meet this person who told me all about myself’” (John 4:28). She ran to tell her friends so that they could. benefit from this unique opportunity that Our Lord's journey through her town had afforded them.

It would be hard to find a greater act of charity, that of announcing to those who are covered in mud and lacking strength, the source of salvation that we have discovered, when we are purified and reconciled to God.

We could think in our prayer: Do we use the means to carry out an effective apostolate of Confession?

Do we bring our friends to this Tribunal of divine mercy—perhaps, in particular, using special periods of the year, like Lent and Advent, to remind people about the sacrament? Or to show within our family that great apostolate of example of what the sacrament means for us?

We can ask Our Lord to increase our desire to purify ourselves by going frequently to the sacrament of Penance to receive that spiritual gold of sanctifying grace. Or we could examine our conscience and see if sometimes we might leave this meeting with God's mercy for later.

In that same Apostolic Exhortation, John Paul II says, “Satisfaction (the doing of the penance) is the final act that crowns the sacramental sign of penance. In some countries, the act which the forgiven and absolved penitent agrees to perform after receiving absolution is precisely called his penance.”

The Council of Florence said that our sins, even after they have been forgiven, deserve a temporal punishment which has to be undergone in this life, or after death in purgatory, which is where those souls who die in a state of grace without having made satisfaction for their sins.

After its reconciliation with God, there are still left in the soul the remains of sin; a weakness of the will to abide in the good. St. John Chrysostom says that there will remain also a certain facility for making wrong judgments, a certain disorder in the sensual appetite. They are the weakened scars of actual sin and the disordered tendencies left in man by original sin, which are brought to a head by our personal sins.

“It is not enough to remove the arrow from the body,” says St. John Chrysostom. “We also have to heal the wound caused by the arrow. It is the same with the soul; after we have received forgiveness for our sins, we have to heal the wound that remains through penance.”

Pope St. John Paul II has said that “even after absolution there remains in the Christian a dark area due to the wound of sin, to the imperfection of love in repentance, to the weakening of the spiritual faculties. It is an area in which there still operates an infectious source of sin that must always be fought with mortification and penance. This is the meaning of the humble but sincere act of satisfaction” (Apostolic Exhortation, "Reconciliation and Penance” and General Audience, March 7, 1984).

We could be mindful of how, each Lent and Advent, Pope Francis and also the popes before him have shown themselves hearing Confession at St. Peter’s. Pope Francis has also allowed himself to be photographed going to Confession. That photograph could go all over the world. Not everyone would be comfortable to have themselves photographed going to Confession, and that's a great example of the Holy Father.

It's like a divine invitation to love this sacrament more—to promote it more, and to put a lot of love into fulfilling the penance that the priest gives us before granting absolution. Usually, it's a penance that's easy to perform. The penitent has a right to refuse the penance if they find it a bit difficult, if it's impossible to fulfill, or if it seems a long-term thing. They can always ask for something different.

St. Josemaría encouraged all the priests of Opus Dei to give light penances and to fulfill the penances themselves. That's one of the reasons that we have to pray for priests.

Usually, the penance we're given is easy to perform and, if we really love God, we will be aware of the great disparity there is between our sins and the penance that we have been given. It's another reason for increasing our spirit of penance all the time, but particularly during those seasons that the Church gives us—Lent and Advent—when the Church calls us to do that in a special way.

We look at this lady caught in adultery, the reaction of Our Lord, and His mercy. It can lead us to contemplate the infinite mercy of God, to thank Him for His mercies toward each one of us. which knows no bounds.

We see that His mercy is greater than His justice, that God is the Father of mercy. He “sees in secret, but He also rewards in secret” (cf. Matt. 6:4,6,18). He wants to reveal the mystery of His love.

In the Encyclical Dives in misericordia (“Rich in Mercy”), St. John Paul II says that modern man “needs mercy.”

It's “one of the principal themes of Our Lord's preaching...with fresh aspects” all the time: the Good Shepherd that goes after the lost sheep (Matt. 18:12-14, Luke 15:3-7), the lost coin (Luke 15:8-10). St. Luke's Gospel is often called “the Gospel of mercy.”

Christ reveals the content of the mercy of God. He invites us so that our lives will be guided by mercy and love. Christ is the “model of mercy” towards others.

In the Beatitudes we are told that “the merciful will obtain mercy” (Matt. 5:7). We're all in need of that mercy.

John Paul II says that “mercy signifies a special power of love, which prevails over sin. ... The subtleties of love become manifest in God's mercy. In a special way, mercy is a notion that pertains to God, but it also pertains to man. Mercy in man is a sign of the closeness of man to God.

“Contrasted with God's justice, mercy is shown to be more powerful, more profound...Love conditions justice...and justice serves love. ... Justice ends up meaning salvation won by God and His mercy. ... It excludes hatred towards others” (John Paul II, Dives in misericordia).

There are three beautiful parables of St. Luke: the shepherd who leaves the ninety-nine sheep to go in search of the lost one (Matt. 18:12-14, Luke 15:3-7); the woman who searches the entire house until she finds the lost coin (Luke 15:8-10); and we're told how God is like a father who comes out of the house to welcome back his prodigal son, and who also comes out of the house a second time to entice the older son to come in and join the party (Luke 15:11-32).

So now God has thrown a party through which we can receive God's infinite mercy. It is interesting to think of the sacrament of Confession as a regular party to which we are invited, and we can tell all our friends and bring them also.

Lord, help us to go to the party to receive your mercy, that party which in Scripture is often called the eternal wedding feast (cf. Isa. 25:6; Rev. 19:7-9).

St. John Paul says there is “no human sin that can erase the mercy of God or prevent him from unleashing all his triumphant power, if we only call upon him. Sin itself makes even more radiant the love of the Father, who, in order to ransom a slave, sacrificed his Son. His mercy towards us is Redemption” (John Paul II, Encyclical, Veritatis Splendor). Without sin, there is no mercy.

“It's proper to God,” said St. Thomas Aquinas, “to exercise mercy, and he manifests his omnipotence, particularly in this way.” St. Thomas shows us that God's mercy, rather than a sign of weakness, is the mark of His omnipotence.

John Paul II says, “In Christ and through Christ, God also becomes especially visible in His mercy; that is to say, there is an emphasis on that attribute of divinity which the Old Testament, using various concepts and terms, already defined as ‘mercy.’ Christ confers on the whole of the Old Testament tradition about God's mercy a definitive meaning. Not only does He speak of it and explain it by the use of comparisons and parables, but above all He Himself makes it incarnate and personifies it. In a certain sense, He Himself is mercy. To the person who sees it in Him—and finds it in Him—God becomes ‘visible’ in a particular way as the Father who is rich in mercy” (Eph. 2:4).

That was the title of one of Pope St. John Paul's next Encyclical: Dives in Misericordia, Rich in Mercy.

We need to contemplate the “mystery of mercy” constantly. It's a wellspring of joy, serenity, and peace. Our salvation depends upon it.

“In the parables devoted to mercy, Our Lord reveals the nature of God as that of a Father who never gives up until he has forgiven the wrong and overcome rejection with compassion and mercy. ... Mercy is the very foundation of the Church's life, says St. John Paul (Bull of Indiction, Misericordiae Vultus of the Extraordinary Jubilee of Mercy).

“The Church has an endless desire to show mercy” (Pope Francis, Apostolic Exhortation, Evangelii Gaudium).

“All of her pastoral activity should be caught up in the tenderness she makes present to believers. ... The Church is commissioned to announce the mercy of God, the beating heart of the Gospel, which in its own way must penetrate the heart and mind of every person (John Paul II, Bull of Indiction, Misericordiae Vultus of the Extraordinary Jubilee of Mercy).

In the Furrow, St. Josemaría says: “Invoke the Heart of Holy Mary, with the purpose and determination of uniting yourself to her sorrow, in reparation for your sins and the sins of men of all times. And pray to her—for every soul—that her sorrow may increase in us our aversion from sin, and that we may be able to love the physical or moral contradictions of each day as a means of expiation (Josemaría Escrivá, Furrow, Point 258).

I thank you, my God, for the good resolutions, affections, and inspirations that you have communicated to me during this meditation. I ask your help to put them into practice. My Immaculate Mother, Saint Joseph, my father and lord, my guardian angel, intercede for me.

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

VA